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The quake, centred 275 km (170 miles) northeast of Kabul, was also felt across parts of northern Pakistan and India, including the respective capitals Islamabad and New Delhi, reporters said.
"The quake was very strong and lasted for 10 seconds. We are expecting casualties because the earthquake was very strong but at the moment we don't have any reports," Munshi Abdul Majid, the governor of the northern Afghan province of Badakhshan, where the epicentre was located, said.
The mud-walled houses of this impoverished part of Afghanistan are vulnerable to quakes.
The US Geological Survey said on its website the quake's magnitude was 5.6 and the epicentre was at a depth of 177 km (110 miles) and 65 km (40 miles) south of the city of Faizabad.
"All my colleagues ran out of office," a Reuters reporter in northeastern Kunar province said.
People also ran out of offices in Islamabad and as far New Delhi, where buildings swayed, witnesses said.
Thousands of people were killed by earthquakes in Badakhshan province in the late 1990s.
On March 25, 2002, at least 1,500 people were killed when a series of quakes of between magnitude 5 and 6 struck northern Baghlan province in the Hindu Kush mountains, destroying the district capital of Nahrin.
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